This is the city of Ronda, built over the river gorge. It was really hard to choose which picture to put in my blog, because Ronda was so beautiful.
Another view from Ronda. The farm land below is full of orange trees.
This is from Arcos de le Frontera. It's not quite as spectacular as Ronda, but still pretty cool.
In tribute to my brother, I am including this picture taken from the bathroom of our hotel room.
The narrow lanes with the white-washed buildings in Arcos.
From Granada, we rode the bus to Arcos de la Frontera, one of the beautiful white hill-towns. This is the southern part of Spain, the state of Andalucia, and is pretty much what we have in mind when we think of Spain. This is the home of bull-fighting, gazpacho, and flamenco.
As we left Granada, our tour guide warned us to have a very light breakfast because we would be stopping for brunch. As a source of revenue, some of the senoras in one of the small towns started a business serving tourists meals in their homes. We arrived in the small town, broke out into groups of seven, and followed the senoras home. The senoras only speak Spanish, but are very good at pantomiming. It was very good practice for me. I was able to understand most of her rudimentary commands and questions.
She served us a lot of different dishes, but all pretty basic. We had fresh bread, cheese, and some sausages and a meat spread that was like chorizo. The main part of the meal was Spanish tortilla, an egg and potato dish. There was a simple tomato and olive oil salsa to go with it. She tried to get us to drink wine with the meal, but we all thought it was too early. After the meal, she passed around a plate of grapes –these are the local wine grapes and tasted very fragrant. Then we had coffee and cookies (no wonder we were told to eat a light breakfast!). Finally, she started pulling out the brandy and other liquors. She encouraged us to drink some by indicating that we could sleep on the bus. The apple brandy was quite nice and not very strong. It was more like a wine than liquor. After our huge meal, she took us on a house tour. It was a nice house, although not very big. The kitchen and bathrooms were about what we would expect. The bedrooms were fairly small but again, looked pretty normal. The dining room was crammed into a small family room and had all of the important family pictures of Christenings and graduations.
We slept for a while on the bus until we reached our next stop, the city of Ronda. Ronda is built on a huge river gorge and is quite spectacular. We visited a bull-fighting ring, complete with blood still visible on the dirt. We did not actually see any bulls, but we did see some of the beautiful horses. Remember the famous Lipizzaner Stallions in Austria are actually from Spain (the Spanish Riding School). Anyway, we had some time to walk around the city and enjoy the views before we had to go.
Our final destination for the day was Arcos de la Frontera. The Frontera was the front line of the war against the Moors. The hill-tops were strategic locations and the towns were pretty well protected. One feature of all these hill-towns is the white-washed houses. I think white is the only color of paint that they sell. But the sun is so intense that the white probably helps to keep the interiors cool. In Arcos, there are not many sights other than the city itself. We did go into the small cathedral to see the dead dudes. One of them is “the incorruptible body” or St. Felix who miraculously never rots. He really looks like a skeleton dressed in clothes. I couldn’t figure out who the other guy was, but he looked the same. Fortunately they were both behind glass so we couldn’t smell them.
One really cool thing in this city was watching the cars trying to navigate the narrow roads. Virtually all the cars in town had long scratches on both sides and a lot of them had broken outside mirrors dangling off. These were compact cars, too. We stood and watched at one section where the buildings squeezed the road so the cars barely fit through. The drivers had to approach the narrow section and then back up a little bit to make sure that they were exactly straight. At this point, they opened the window and tilted the side mirror in. Then, ever so slowly, they would proceed. Once clear they reached out and pushed the mirror back out. There were tons of motorbikes here, too. Motorbikes would be much more practical than a car. The steep hills would make bicycles nearly impossible. Even walking up some of the hills was difficult!
As we left Granada, our tour guide warned us to have a very light breakfast because we would be stopping for brunch. As a source of revenue, some of the senoras in one of the small towns started a business serving tourists meals in their homes. We arrived in the small town, broke out into groups of seven, and followed the senoras home. The senoras only speak Spanish, but are very good at pantomiming. It was very good practice for me. I was able to understand most of her rudimentary commands and questions.
She served us a lot of different dishes, but all pretty basic. We had fresh bread, cheese, and some sausages and a meat spread that was like chorizo. The main part of the meal was Spanish tortilla, an egg and potato dish. There was a simple tomato and olive oil salsa to go with it. She tried to get us to drink wine with the meal, but we all thought it was too early. After the meal, she passed around a plate of grapes –these are the local wine grapes and tasted very fragrant. Then we had coffee and cookies (no wonder we were told to eat a light breakfast!). Finally, she started pulling out the brandy and other liquors. She encouraged us to drink some by indicating that we could sleep on the bus. The apple brandy was quite nice and not very strong. It was more like a wine than liquor. After our huge meal, she took us on a house tour. It was a nice house, although not very big. The kitchen and bathrooms were about what we would expect. The bedrooms were fairly small but again, looked pretty normal. The dining room was crammed into a small family room and had all of the important family pictures of Christenings and graduations.
We slept for a while on the bus until we reached our next stop, the city of Ronda. Ronda is built on a huge river gorge and is quite spectacular. We visited a bull-fighting ring, complete with blood still visible on the dirt. We did not actually see any bulls, but we did see some of the beautiful horses. Remember the famous Lipizzaner Stallions in Austria are actually from Spain (the Spanish Riding School). Anyway, we had some time to walk around the city and enjoy the views before we had to go.
Our final destination for the day was Arcos de la Frontera. The Frontera was the front line of the war against the Moors. The hill-tops were strategic locations and the towns were pretty well protected. One feature of all these hill-towns is the white-washed houses. I think white is the only color of paint that they sell. But the sun is so intense that the white probably helps to keep the interiors cool. In Arcos, there are not many sights other than the city itself. We did go into the small cathedral to see the dead dudes. One of them is “the incorruptible body” or St. Felix who miraculously never rots. He really looks like a skeleton dressed in clothes. I couldn’t figure out who the other guy was, but he looked the same. Fortunately they were both behind glass so we couldn’t smell them.
One really cool thing in this city was watching the cars trying to navigate the narrow roads. Virtually all the cars in town had long scratches on both sides and a lot of them had broken outside mirrors dangling off. These were compact cars, too. We stood and watched at one section where the buildings squeezed the road so the cars barely fit through. The drivers had to approach the narrow section and then back up a little bit to make sure that they were exactly straight. At this point, they opened the window and tilted the side mirror in. Then, ever so slowly, they would proceed. Once clear they reached out and pushed the mirror back out. There were tons of motorbikes here, too. Motorbikes would be much more practical than a car. The steep hills would make bicycles nearly impossible. Even walking up some of the hills was difficult!
1 comment:
Actually your brother took pictures of the interior of bathrooms in many places he visited in the military. Yours didn't show the fixtures. Oh well, they probably were similar to ours.
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